One of the things I like which doesn’t fit the profile of an un athletic Pom is the NFL, and the San Francisco 49’ers in particular.Anyone growing up in the 1980’s will probably remember Britain’s fourth and newest channel finding cheap and novel ways to fill its scheduling which included a lot of American imports. Cheers and Roseanne, thanks. You could have kept The Golden Girls and My Two Dads, though, U.S. To British kids, the most glamorous aspect of our sports was the military bands which marched up and down the national stadium during Cup Final day. It didn’t matter, because we had the game in our heads and hearts, but it did mean that Channel Four’s NFL coverage on Sunday night was a bit of a head turner. The full stadia. The cool team names. The uniforms. The catching of a 60 yard pass in slow motion. It was hard not to love it. And so it was. We all picked teams, mine being the 49’ers. It was the name-a number!- and the colours that did it.

I’d lost interest during my late teens, watching US t.v shows replaced by a fascination with moody guitar bands and a low key drug habit. But I did still follow from afar, and tuned in for the 49’ers SuperBowl victory in early 1995. In the few years before this, the team had been great but that hadn’t been enough to see them past their rivals. So they went for bust in 1994, and bought their way to success in a move which could have broken the organisation financially. Except it didn’t. Because they got the big win they wanted.

I was thinking about this recently. I have an upcoming show at a local venue, and also the chance to exhibit in a prestigious gallery. Making beautiful, big prints, and having them expertly framed will produce beautiful work and, if work sells, lead to greater profit and profile. But I’m not exactly cash handy right now. And that wouldn’t be a problem except my current selling methods of bothering people on the street and/or tacking prints on to existing jobs isn’t really working. So. All or nothing? It would seem so. Because I believe in the work, and others do, too. So let’s push that boat out. Screw it. Push it out, fire flaming arrows at it and watch it burn.